Case Study: Quality Tooling Company and Quality Improvement Methods

This case study examines Quality Tooling Company (QTC), a manufacturing company facing challenges in a competitive market. The report analyzes QTC's potential implementation of various quality improvement strategies, including Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality Assurance (QA), and Quality Control (QC). The TQM section focuses on customer focus, employee involvement, organizational development, communication, and waste minimization. QA is discussed in terms of its importance, functions (technology transfer, validation, documentation), and the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act). Quality control is presented as a method to ensure product quality by examining the final product. The study highlights the benefits and limitations of these methods and emphasizes the importance of certifications like ISO 9000 to enhance QTC's market position, reduce waste, and improve employee productivity. The case study provides a comprehensive overview of quality management techniques that QTC can adopt to improve its operations and maintain a competitive edge.

QUALITY TOOLING CASE
STUDY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Quality refers to as standard of anything against which other things can be measured of
similar kind and nature. It can be stated as the degree of excellence of anything. The resent report
is based on Quality Tooling Company (QTC). It is a company established by young engineer in
North East of England in early 1960' s. The company deals in manufacturing engineering
products, engineering scribes, calipers and is focused on expanding in micrometers and dealing
in specialist items which requires high quality materials (Khanam, Siddiqui and Talib, 2016). So
the present study will outline the company adopting to several methods to improve the quality of
the company and its working and operations. The report will highlight that how company will
introduce a company wide improvement strategy. Also, it will discuss the implications of
techniques like Total Quality Management, Quality Assurance and Quality Control along with
sustainability of the culture of quality.
MAIN BODY
Quality Tooling Company (QTC) deals in engineering products but there is a decline of
engineering products in North East of England and the competition has also increased. As the
goodwill of the company was good but it will not long for last. The north- east Hospital
Management has approached QTC with an offer to design and manufacture medical equipments
for them. The company has signed a two-year contract with QTC to manufacture the equipments.
For maintaining the quality of the company and its products the company will try to
implement some company wide quality improvement strategies. This will ensure that the quality
of the company and its products will increase the goodwill in the market and will provide a
competitive advantage over the competitors. Some different strategies which Quality Tooling
Company can use are as follows-
Total Quality Management - It is a system which is based on the principle that every
person is responsible and committed towards maintaining high quality without saying it.
Basically it means that morally every employee of the company must ensure that it is doing
ethical and quality work. The quality maintenance is very necessary because if the products and
service will not be up to mark then no consumer or client will purchase it and because of which
the goodwill of company will be hampered (Fening, Amaria and Frempong, 2016). The total
quality management is a consumer oriented method which aims at continuously improving the
quality of business operations and ultimately resulting in accomplishment of goals of business.

This technique ensures the overall development and growth of the business. For following this
quality technique QTC has to follow the following principles -
Customer focused - these are treated as kings or god of the market. This is because of the
reason that these are the ultimate users of the product and services of company (Al - Dhaafri and
Al - Swidi, 2016). Therefore, they are the ultimate determiner of the level of quality the product
have or not. For this QTC needs to focus on the taste and preferences of the consumers and the
market trends and buying behaviour of the consumers in the market. This will help the company
in understanding the market trends and requirements of the consumers and manufacture the
products according to their needs.
Total employee involvement - employees are the second thing on which the company
needs to prioritize focus more after consumers. This is because of the reason that employees are
the individual who understands the needs of consumer and then develop products and services to
satisfy and cater to the needs of consumers. It is very important that the employees are being
involved in every task of the business. It is so because if they will feel belongingness from the
side of organization then they will have confidence in company that it pays attention to the needs
of employees as well. Therefore, they will be more committed towards their work and will work
with more productivity and efficiency.
Organizational development - as the approach of TQM is more focused on overall
quality of the company so it leads to development of the overall organization. So the use of this
technique is beneficial because it leads the business on the way of success and growth. Also, it
improves the cross departmental and functional knowledge of employees as they share their
knowledge with each other.
Communication - it is yet another principle which QTC needs to follow in order to
maintain overall quality of the company. So it is very essential to have clear and understandable
communication among each and every department and function within the business. If every
employee will have prior information about what they have to do then there will be on time work
completion or even before the time (Chaudary, Zafar and Salman, 2015).
Waste minimization and continuous improvements - with the help of application of this
technique the unnecessary waste which may occur in the company can be minimized. This is
because of the reason that if the company focuses on the quality and for that it critically evaluate
all the aspects of producing the products. So this check ensures that every work is met before

deadline and if at time of inspection and audit there occurs any problem it is solved there itself
(Mohammed, Alotibie and Abdulaziz, 2016).
Some benefits and advantages which Quality Tooling Company can gain by applying
TQM within the company are listed below-
 The major benefit attained by QTC is that its quality will be enhanced and it will attract
more consumers and in turn it will increase the goodwill and market position of the
company.
 The application of TQM within the Quality Tooling Company is that it will assist the
company in detecting the non- productive and non- profitable areas of business and then
trying to resolve the problem. With the application of this technique QTC can time- to- time review the quality of the
products and can match it with the changing environment and needs of consumers
(Chuang, Chen and Tsai, 2015). Hence, the growth and development of the company can
be continuously review its development.
Quality assurance – The quality assurance is a term which is applicable globally for
covering the policy, management and control function of quality. The product under quality
assurance will be consistent in manufacturing for the standard which is required by standards.
Main aim for attaining the best quality is through the adoption of quality control system which is
cost effective and the external audits and inspection on regular basis to get sure about the quality
of products which is manufactured (Winkler, Biffl and Bergsmann, eds., 2019). The quality
assurance is a process which determines a product or service to meet the specific requirements.
This system is meant for increasing the efficiency of work along with the processes. The system
of quality assurance for the company helps them in accomplishing target in better way. ISO
(International Organization for Standardization) is a force which drives the practise of quality
assurance in a company.
The quality assurance is a crucial system in accomplishing the target of business entity.
Some importance will be reflected through the analysis of products and services offered by
company which meets the expectations, requirements and needs of consumers. Also, the quality
assurance is important for offering high quality product which build loyalty and trust with their
customers (Abdelatif, Ahmed and Elhassan, 2019). Along with this, this system also helps the
products to stay prevent from defects at the time they arise. The quality assurance of products as

well as services ensures organization certain benefits and limitations. This will be determined as
follows :
The quality assurance helps the company in reducing their cost of products which they
earlier spend on defective products. Also, this helps company to build good relationship with
customers because the customers through customer support service receives defect report. One of
the biggest limitation of quality assurance is that it requires an investment in process as well as in
people (Sweis, Obeidat and Kanaan, 2019). The people included in process of work flow and
implementation of team in quality assurance. Along with this, the method of quality assurance is
very time consuming which impacts directly on delivery of desired products.
The primary functions of quality assurance for Quality Tooling Company are as follows :
Transfer of technology – The function of technology transfer is related with getting a
design of product under which error data, trail and their evaluation is done. The documentations
of transfer of technology are checked before distributed and also approved by authorities before
their implementation in the company QTC.
Validation – The validation is a master plan for the entire system under which it is
concerned with approval of criteria for testing for product and process validation. The planning
in context for resources is also executed in validation plan when it is applicable in QTC.
Documentation – This is a controlling function which helps the company such as QTC in
attaining success in distribution. Any modification in documents are formulated through
adoption of proper procedure for change control.
Assurance and improvement plans for quality - The company QTC for adopting this
system need to undertake these steps of quality assurance. They are defined in cycle called as
PDCA under which P stands for Plan, D for Do, C reflects Check whereas A stand for Act. Plan – Quality Tooling Company must establish and plan the process which in relation
with determining the process which requires a high - quality product. Do – The testing and development of processes will be undertaken by QTC under this
step in which the plan and process both are executed together to attain desired result. Check – Under this stage, the process of monitoring, modifying and check is executed.
This stage undertakes a check on products and services offered by company. So that the
objectives which were predetermined can be attained effectively by QTC.

 Act – This is the last step of quality assurance. Under this step, the actions are
implemented under the company to align the products in desired quality. These
improvements in the products possesses company like Quality Tooling Company in
reducing problems and errors in their products.
For application of quality assurance methods the company QTC need to undertake
several certifications like ISO 9000. This certification is helpful for increasing profitability of
company along with this, it lay a path for improvement for international as well as domestic
trade. Not only this, this certification assist company to reduce wastage and increase employees
productivity.
Quality control – It is a software engineering process which is usually adopted for
ensuring product quality or concerned for their services. The quality control does not deal during
production process rather than it examines quality at the end of product. The main objective of
quality control is to check the quality of product for mitigating requirements and specification
according to customers (Kozai, Niu and Takagaki, eds., 2015). Also, the quality control
evaluates people for setting of skills according to their certification and training. The quality
control is a set of procedure and measure for ensuring the product quality in improvement and
maintaining against benchmark. This method of quality control ensures product and
manufacturing of products for aligning the products according to requirements and needs of
customers.
Quality control and quality assurance system are commensurate but there are some
difference between them are that the system of quality control examines services rendered and
products offered to customer by company (Quality assurance vs Quality control, 2019). Also,
they execute a check for the outcomes while quality assurance is a process of examining in
executing changes in process which lead to the end stage of a production like undertaking of
quality audit on regular basis to minimize errors.
The quality control adopted by Quality tooling company requires creating an
environment which strives for perfection for both employees and businesses. Along with this, the
training to employees working in Quality tooling company creates a benchmark for production
quality and test them for managing and identifying any statistical significant variation.
Benefits which offers for Quality Tooling Company by application of quality control
method is that it assist Quality tooling company in attaining demand of customer for better

product. The quality testing enables the process of manufacturing in accurate manner (Modarres,
Kaminskiy and Krivtsov, 2016). As this begin testing of raw materials by extracting samples
from beginning to every stage of production. This helps company such as QTC in identification
of problem at an initial stage and steps which is required by them to implement in the future.
The functions which are mainly involved in this system of quality control are as follows :
Testing – This is a basic function of quality control which need to be adopted by Quality
tooling company. Testing involves execution of tests in process of manufacturing at very
beginning and during every stage of production. This helps the company like Quality tooling
company to discover error and any point of issue during the process of production which they
later rectify it. Testing enables manufacturers to entail quality end results.
Monitoring – The monitoring is another essential function which need to be performed
by company on regular basis (Schnelle Jr, Dunn and Ternes, 2015). The specialist under process
of quality control perform many tests, review it and looks for any possible trend within quality of
product. This will enable Quality tooling company to maintain the amount of testing within a
specified area by continuous monitoring it.
Auditing – The specialist hired by Quality tooling company make audit on regular basis
to control the quality of work performed within premises. The audit report is continuously
monitored for better assurance of quality of products.
Reporting – Number of problem within the quality of products is monitored and audited
during the production need to be reported to the immediate supervisor held at QTC. This enables
management to review problems where the process of action taken is occurred so that the issue is
addressed efficiently. Therefore, his is one of the primary function of quality control.
Sustainability of the culture of quality
The culture of quality is a group value which guide about improvement which are made
with working practise and consequent outcomes. This culture of an organisation is a set of
practise which begins with leadership which comprehends and believes implications of
systematic view and necessity to serve customers to get succeed. The culture of quality is
important for enabling customer experience, growth and performance improvement (Mahdei,
Zanganeh and Pouya, 2017). At Quality tooling company, the quality is most important element
which drives experience of customers which lay concrete step to strengthen culture of quality

within the company. For maintaining culture of quality in Quality tooling company, the
management personnel must approach certain elements in their businesses.
Maintain leadership - This begins with emphasising leadership on quality. The
leadership is an important element which drag interest of employees towards maintaining quality
of products offered by them (Al - Dhaafri, Al – Swidi and Yusoff, 2016). The leaders will attend
workshops which assist them to stay aligned towards the organisational goal which is quality
oriented.
Encourages involvement of staff members – The company in order to meet sustainability
must encourage peers involvement which develops interest of employees and enable innovation
within the QTC. They need to involve employees for quality improvement projects of the
company.
Increases ownership of employees – The company for developing a true culture of
quality must enable free environment for employees in which they develop their sense of
judgement which help them to think outside the box (Zhang, Gregory and Neely, 2016). Also,
the decision making capability of employees rises with increase in ownership which empowers
employees to stay independent within Quality tooling company.
CONCLUSION
This report was presented a study on Quality tooling company a company of England.
This report was ascertained different improvement strategies which could be adopted by Quality
tooling company. These were mainly focused on Total quality management system, Quality
assurance system and quality control implication system. In this report, benefits of all these
systems were expressed along with the functions to be performed by company to attain culture of
quality in an organisation like quality tooling company. All these systems expressed about are
beneficial for companies quality management.
The total quality management was summarised above that non - productive and non -
profitable areas will be easily detected by company when Quality tooling company adopted this
system whereas quality assurance enables company to stay assure regarding quality of products
with minimal defects. The quality control were analysed that this helps company to mitigate the
product quality according to needs & requirements of customers. At last, for sustainability of
culture of quality were expressed under this report. Under which company must take care about

maintaining leadership role and involvement of peers for enabling decision making regarding
quality culture were also emphasised in this report.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The company Quality tooling company must adopt quality assurance system. This system
will enable company to possess quality which ensures attraction of customers. Also, the aim of
quality assurance system prevents defects in products which focused on it during production. The
quality assurance is concerned with establishing good quality management system. This system
is suggested as the best method for quality tooling company because it adopts statistical tools and
techniques during process of production which assures company in reducing errors (Quality
assurance vs Quality control, 2019). Which helps this method to stay differentiated from other
system because it is more process oriented rather than product oriented. This foster their
profitability and success more when to be adopted by Quality tooling company.

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